Monday, 9 May 2011

AYTD was pretty late bringing this to you but here it is for your viewing pleasure anyways - C'mon Son 2010: Year In Review. Former MTV Yo! Raps presenter and radio DJ Ed Lover highlights some events of the past 12 months. Calling for a little comic relief, this post is somewhat of a diversion from the usually heavy content covered on this blog, however Mr. Lover does include a little bit of political satire in his 2010 round-up.

Friday, 6 May 2011

NLE (National Level Exercise) is a yearly occurring drill-based event held in the United States where the country tests and evaluates itself in dealing with incidents of the grandest scale; be it some sort of terrorist attack, or a natural disaster. As mentioned in AYTD's post re: NLE 10 - some of the World's biggest terrorist attacks happened simultaneously with drills that were executed at the same locations.

National Level Exercise NLE 2011 will be an operations-based exercise centered on the scenario of a catastrophic earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, encompassing four FEMA Regions (IV, V, VI and VII) and eight Central U.S. Earthquake States: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. NLE 2011 will exercise initial incident response and recovery capabilities, to test and validate existing plans, policies and procedures to include the New Madrid Catastrophic Plan (currently under development). NLE 2011 will be conducted in May 2011.

Update: The NLE 2011 will be conducted on May 16th - 20th, 2011.

Scenario: On 16 May 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) confirmed that a catastrophic earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 occurred on the southwestern segment of the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ), with an epicenter at Marked Tree, AR (to the northwest of Memphis, TN). A second large earthquake with magnitude of 6.0 occurred a short time later on the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone (WVSZ), with an epicenter near Mt. Carmel, IN.

Below is a video clip featuring Kenyan-born U.S. President, Barry Soetoro. Here we see Soetoro giving a speech at the White House, Washington DC, disclosing details of bin Laden's end via a firefight with U.S. Forces in the City of Abbottabad, northern Pakistan:

Next up are a couple of short extracts from White House press conferences/briefings that occurred soon after puppet Soetoro's archetypal monotone monologue. The accounts of Osama's "killing" differ to each other. First, John Brennan, a White House Counterterrorism Advisor, followed on from Soetoro's testimony that bin Laden was engaged in a firefight. He also sneaks in a little bit of propaganda hinting that Pakistan was knowingly helping giving refuge to the 54 year-old Yemeni:

However, this next clip states that although the U.S. team was within a firefight throughout their operation, bin Laden himself was not armed in his capture, as mentioned by White House spokesman Jay Carney:

Although the image of Osama previously used by the media is a fake and has no ties of content released by the White House, as things stand they are contemplating whether to relinquish their own fake photos of the dead bin Laden, but fear that the images are "gruesome" and inflammatory.

Monday, 2 May 2011

"...Five years after the 7/7 attacks galvanized debates about Muslim-British identity, We Are A Muslim, Please is an illuminating and enchanting memoir. We see, through Zaiba's childhood eyes, the poignancy of growing up in a world whose prejudices, contradictions and ambiguities are at once distressing and utterly captivating."